Ratcliffe graduated from the University of Birmingham with a degree in chemical engineering in 1974.

In 1985, Ratcliffe married Amanda Townson; they have two sons, George and Samuel. They divorced in 1995. He has one daughter with his current partner, Maria Alessia Maresca, an Italian tax lawyer.

His first job was with oil giant Esso, but he decided to broaden his skills into finance by studying management accounting, taking an MSc in finance at London Business School from 1978 to 1980 (he donated £25m to the school in 2016). In 1989, he joined US private equity group Advent International.

Ratcliffe was a co-founder of Inspec, which leased the former BP Chemicals site in Antwerp, Belgium. In 1998 Ratcliffe formed Ineos in Hampshire to buy-out Inspec and the freehold of the Antwerp site.

From this small base, using high-yield debt to finance deals, Ratcliffe started buying unwanted operations from groups such as ICI and BP, selecting targets based on their potential to double their earnings over a five-year period. In 2006 Ineos bought BP’s refining and petrochemical arm Innovene, giving Ineos refineries and plants in Scotland, Italy, Germany, France, Belgium and Canada.

In May 2009, Ratcliffe was granted an honorary fellowship by the Institution of Chemical Engineers citing “his sustained leadership in building the Ineos Group.” In 2013 he received the Petrochemical Heritage Award. Ratcliffe was appointed Knight Bachelor in the 2018 Birthday Honours for services to business and to investment.

In April 2010, Ratcliffe moved Ineos’s head office from Hampshire to Rolle, Switzerland, decreasing the amount of tax the company paid by £100m a year.

Ratcliffe has owned two super yachts, Hampshire and Hampshire II. His first yacht was built as Barbara Jean by Feadship. In 2012 he took delivery of the 78 metres (256 ft) Feadship Hampshire II, built by Royal van Lent, which he still owns.

In 2015, Ratcliffe opened the UK headquarters of the chemicals and energy group in Knightsbridge, London, along with gas and oil trading, and other functions, saying he was “very cheerful about coming back to the UK”. He was pleased with UK policy, London as a business base, and untroubled by the prospect of Brexit. Full year 2015 EBITDA was €577 million compared to €253 million for 2014.

On 13 November 2017, Ratcliffe became the owner of FC Lausanne-Sport, a Swiss Super League football club.

Ineos has carried out small projects in bio ethanol production using Clostridium bacteria, but it has had problems because the syngas has levels of hydrogen cyanide too high for the bacteria to survive. Ineos sold the Florida plant to Alliance Bio-Products Inc. in 2017.

Ratcliffe lives in Monaco and Hampshire, England. In May 2017, he submitted his fifth plan, less ambitious than the first four, to build a “luxury home” at Thorns Beach, near Beaulieu, on the Hampshire coast, which would replace an existing two-bedroom bungalow. In September 2020, Ratcliffe officially changed his tax residence from Hampshire to Monaco, a move that it is estimated will save him £4 billion in tax.

In 2018, Ratcliffe partnered with Ben Ainslie to form Ineos Team UK to compete for the 36th America’s Cup in 2021. Ratcliffe is reportedly investing over £110 million in the project.

In February 2019 it was announced that Ineos would invest £1bn in the UK oil and chemical industries, to include an overhaul of the Forties pipeline system that is responsible for transporting a significant percentage of the UK’s North Sea oil and gas.

On 1 May 2019, Ratcliffe criticised the current government rules which say fracking in Britain must be suspended every time a 0.5 magnitude tremor is detected, which has led to a de facto ban on fracking. He said: “I think the government has been pathetic on the subject”.

On 19 March 2019, Ratcliffe purchased the Team Sky cycling franchise, subsequently rebranded Team Ineos. Their first competitive race under the new Ineos sponsorship, was the 2019 Tour de Yorkshire. They subsequently won the 2019 Tour de France with the Colombian rider Egan Bernal.

On 22 August 2019, the French competition authority permitted the €100 million takeover of Ligue 1 club OGC Nice from Chinese-American entrepreneur Chien Lee by Ineos.

In March 2019 Ineos said it would close its Middlesbrough manufacturing plant unless it is allowed to ‘defer compliance’ with EU rules designed to prevent air and water pollution. An analysis of data from the Environment Agency (EA) also reveals the plant clocked up 176 permit violations between 2014 and 2017. An EA spokesperson said: “air emissions are well over legal limits and this poses a risk to the environment”. INEOS director Tom Crotty said the firm “cannot justify” the investment required to comply with EU air and water pollution rules due to come into force in the coming years.

In February 2020, Ineos became principal partners of Mercedes AMG F1, signing a five-year agreement with the team. In the same month, Ratcliffe rejected claims that he would buy a Premier League club, having previously been linked to Chelsea.